The Supreme Court delivered a blow Thursday to President Obama, ruling that he went too far in making recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

In a unanimous decision, the high court sided with Senate Republicans and limited the president’s power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments. It was the first-ever Supreme Court test involving the long-standing practice of presidents naming appointees when the Senate is on break.

In this case, Obama had argued that the Senate was on an extended holiday break when he filled slots at the NLRB in 2012. He argued the brief sessions it held every three days were a sham that was intended to prevent him from filling the seats.

The justices rejected that argument, though, declaring the Senate was not actually in a formal recess when Obama acted during that three-day window.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in his majority opinion that a congressional break has to last at least 10 days to be considered a recess under the Constitution.

“Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause. Thus we conclude that the President lacked the power to make the recess appointments here at issue,” Breyer wrote.

At the same time, the court upheld the general authority of the president to make recess appointments.

This one, like the Citizens United ruling, is gonna sting “the smartest administration evah!!” quite a bit. Good.

Comments

Three unanimous SCOTUS decisions in two days. Something tells me that SCOTUS is interested in emphasizing “separation of powers” and “checks and balances”. Perhaps that may prove to be Roberts’ legacy.

I won’t be around in 50 years, Chick, but y’all check his (Roberts’) legacy then and I’d bet my neighbor’s farm it will be more about how he swung to the radical/revolutionary side with Kagan et al more often than keeping his constitutional principles clean and healthy with the traditionalists. Maybe that’s because he either has a very poor understanding of what plain English words mean, or he wants to be liked and admired by those he considers in his heart of hearts as intellectually superior.

Unfortunately for him, he will never be either liked or admired by such sophists, so all his own sophistry will be for naught in the protection and upholding of the Constitution.

Constitutional scholar Obhammud is woefully ignorant when it comes to the Constitution. What matters in any individual, but especially the President, is not what or how much he knows but how he applies that knowledge.

He is like a guy I met in the Navy who had two advanced degrees but could not even tie his shoes and was issued slip-ons.

There is a very wide difference between a smart person and an educated person.